The School of Athens

During this painting, Michelangelo didn’t have the drive he usually did, but when his greatest enemy, Perugino started to work on it with him, that drove him to another level. Michelangelo’s interest in portraying the human body, reflected how the people in this time period felt, and that made the people who viewed his art interested in his work. Also, his sculptures reflect how dramatic of a shift it was to the Renaissance Period from the Middle Ages, and shows how the

Ross King’s Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling narrates the four years from 1508-1512 that Michelangelo spent laboring over the immense project handed to him; to fresco the 12,000 square foot ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. King’s book describes the battles that Michelangelo faced; the internal struggles, political turmoil and rivalries among fellow artist that encompassed his surroundings. Michelangelo’s battles with his health, family problems, financial burdens, rival artists and the ever impatient Pope are told in great detail by King. King also provides precise artistic descriptions of the process required to fresco scenes so magnificent they are considered one of the greatest artistic masterpieces of all time.

Fifth-century Athens refers to the Greek city-state of Athens in the period of roughly 480 BC-404 BC. This was a period of Athenian political hegemony, economic growth and cultural flourishing formerly known as the Golden Age of Athens or The Age of Pericles. The period began in 480 BC when an Athenian-led coalition of city-states, known as the Delian League, defeated the Persians at Salamis. As the fifth century wore on, what started as an alliance of independent city-states gradually became an Athenian empire. Eventually, Athens abandoned the pretense of parity among its allies and relocated the Delian League treasury from Delos to Athens, where it funded the building of the AthenianAcropolis. With its enemies

One of the most famous painter and sculptors of the Italian Renaissance, the age of renewal and cultural achievement circa 1500, was the artistic genius Michelangelo Buonarroti. The man that desired nothing but perfection often reached it in his work. He captured the motion of the human figure and the anatomy of muscles in a way that was increasingly beautiful and startlingly realistic. Whether because of one of the most famous sculptures in history, “the David” or the paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, that became the textbook examples for the art period of High Renaissance, Michelango’s art changed the world and he will continue to be studied with awe throughout history.

Another painting was The Ceiling: Stanza della Segnatura. In it, he developed a line of thought linked with Neoplatonism, it had three concepts of truth, goodness, and beauty.

Throughout history there were many armies that were strong and courageous when it came to battle, but none as strong as the army of Sparta and their strong education system. The city-state in Greece that was located in the peninsula of Peloponnesus was considered a “tiny powerhouse” in the eastern Mediterranean, whose greatest rival was Athens. They had a very strong army and battle strategy, called the phalanx, that allowed them to compete in many battles in history. Some of the battles included the Peloponnesus War, the battle of Thermopylae, and the invasion of the Persians. One of the main factors in the Spartans ability to compete in those battles against Athens and the outside world was because of the education system that they had in

The School of Athens is a fresco done by Raphael around 1510-12 in the Stanza della Segnatura, St. Peters for Bramante. It is a large figure group situated within a linear perspectival environment. Two main figures, Aristotle and Plato stand in the center of the large figure group in the background. There are two smaller figure groups on the left and right in the foreground. In contrast, the Adoration of the Magi, painted by Leonardo da Vinci around 1481-2 is a large figure group with a central triangular figure group. In the background on the left are ruins of a building and men on horseback fighting. Leonardo was commissioned by monks of San Donato a Scopeto in Florence, however, was left unfinished by Leonardo when he left for Milan.

Artistic Comparison (“The School of Athens” by Raphael, “Giovanni Andolfini and His Bride” by Jan van Eck) Bold in his usage of symbolism, Eck’s “Giovanni Andolfini and His Bride” presents a religious view of the marriage between a merchant and his wife. Comparatively, Raphael’s beautiful “School of Athens,” pays homage to many famous Renaissance humanists, while incorporating many artistic techniques common to works of that time. Starting with Eck’s masterpiece, the first thing that is noticeable to the viewer is the reality in which the scene is portrayed.

The Athenian society was known as the most powerful society and well-developed city in the ancient Greek world. The Athenian Society was also known for their brilliant innovations in a lot of fields of life that are still being used in today’s life. Those fields of life include literature, poetry, drama, theatre, schools, buildings, and government. The fact that Athenian society being the strongest and brilliant society in the Ancient Greek time makes it become the most interesting society to study about. This society has a lot to offer in terms of its history and culture. To really see what the Athenian Society look like, we have to look at some important factors. Those

Catholicism and the story of Christ are key components of the Italian Renaissance. Many of the most popular works of art from this area employ some sort of biblical theme. Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” is no exception to this trend.

Depicting all the great philosophers of the ancient world gathering within a Christian Basilica, and being overlooking by the Greek gods, Raphael was able to bridge the gap between pagan and Christian philosophies. He used elaborate colors and shadowing to form each individual character. The paintings backdrop provides it with sense of linear perspective and provide all the central elements of Renaissance art. It is very symbolic that many of the ancient philosophers are model after the Renaissance artist, for they were now the world great philosophers within their own right. After completion of the School of Athens, Raphael represent what the Italian Renaissance movement was all about.

I realized it was unconventional, it was my way of portraying my impressions of the two city-states. Athens were superior in Education. Education was very important in Athens, specifically for the boys who learned poetry, musical instrument, public speaking, drama, reading, writing, math, arts, sciences and politics and government. Meanwhile, the girls were taught by their mother to be domesticated, where they learned how to cook, clean, and sew.

Throughout this section I was exposed to what it was like to live during ancient times. Something that stood out to me was that Athens had the first democracy, the form of government we use today in the United States. It’s amazing to me, to see once again how the past has shaped our future. Luckily, not everything is the same as it was in the past and the world has further progressed as, in Athens women were not treated as equal to men and slaves were used.

On the wall under Theology is the Disputà, representing a group discussing the mystery of the Trinity. The famous School of Athens, on the wall beneath Philosophy, portrays an open architectural space in which Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers are engaged in discourse. On the wall under Poetry is the Parnassus, in which the Greek god Apollo appears surrounded by the Muses and the great poets. (Paoletti, 347) Others describe the frescoes in the Stanze as “related to three fundamental ideas of Christian Platonism, The True, The Good and The Beautiful. The Disputa corresponds to theological or revealed truth, and the School of Athens to philosophical or rational truth; the frescoes of the Virtues, canon law and civil law correspond to the Good; and the Parnassus to the Beautiful.” (Daley, 114)

Botticelli’s Allegory of Spring represents the use of many colors adopted by Renaissance artists and has a realistic scene of an orange grove behind its subjects. While at first glance the individuals in the painting appear to be religious figures, upon further inspection, it is evident that the woman in the center is the Roman goddess Venus. Her presence is a reflection of the Humanist interest in the classical world (ItalianRenaissance). The School of Athens (Sanzio) is an example of Secularism in artwork because Secular themed books are pictured within the painting, revealing the change in Italy and across Europe. “Raphael’s The School of Athens is an allegory of secular knowledge representing the high Renaissance.